From Ergo Log
We've already written a few times about the fact that ginger boosts the concentration of testosterone in the blood. We still find it strange that a basic cooking ingredient has this effect. That's why a Tunisian animal study piqued our interest: researchers managed to normalise the testosterone level of diabetic rats using powdered ginger.
Researchers at the University of Sfax will soon publish in the International Journal of Food Sciences and Nutrition the results of a study in which they gave powdered to ginger for a month to male rats suffering from diabetes. The researchers made the powdered ginger themselves. They peeled the roots, cut them into pieces, freeze dried them and then ground the pieces into a powder. They then added 3 g of the ginger powder to 100 g feed.
A control group of diabetic rats were given no ginger; another control group had no diabetes - and were given no ginger either. If you convert the dose to human proportions you'd need 20-30 g powdered ginger daily for an adult. Hooray for concentrated supplements.
At the end of the month the researchers observed that the diabetic rats had a lower concentration of FSH, LH and testosterone than the healthy rats. The concentrations of FSH, LH and testosterone of the diabetic rats that had been given ginger were between those of the diabetic and the healthy rats.
The values on the y-axis in the figure below are expressed in nanograms per millilitre.
Diabetes boosted the concentration of toxic malondialdehyde in the rats' sexual organs and lowered the concentration of protective and detoxifying enzymes such as superoxide dismutase, catalase and glutathione peroxidase [GPx]. Ginger supplementation partially reversed these effects.
Levels of enzymes such as AST, ALT, ALP and LDH were higher in the testes cells of the diabetic rats. That is an indicator of cell damage. Ginger supplementation limited the rise in these concentrations.
"Though the results of animal experiments are limited and cannot be applied to humans, dietary supplementation with ginger roots could be an easy, inexpensive and promising agent for protection against male reproductive dysfunctions in diabetics", the Tunisians conclude.
Int J Food Sci Nutr. 2013 Jul 18. [Epub ahead of print].